World News Summary

Top religious scholars working under the world’s largest bloc of Islamic countries said Thursday they strongly condemn the kidnapping of more than 270 Nigerian schoolgirls, calling for their immediate release.

The kidnappings three weeks ago by the extremist group Boko Haram have led to worldwide condemnation. The group’s leader has used Islamic teachings as justification for threatening to sell the girls into slavery.

Nigerian terrorists killed more than 100 people in their latest attack: an extended assault on the remote northeastern town of Gamboru Ngala. Some officials have estimated the death toll at upwards of 300, after fighters spent 12 hours gunning down civilians, lobbing home-made bombs into homes and torching shops as their victims burned inside.

Nigerian officials haven’t given many details of the attack. Nigerian soldiers in the town at the time reportedly fled or were killed. Surviving residents have told reporters their attackers were members of the insurgent group Boko Haram, which has claimed responsibility for having kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from a Nigerian boarding school nearly one month ago.

North Korea has threatened to conduct its nuclear and missile tests annually as a measure of self-defense, as South Korea urged vigilance against its neighbor’s ambitions in the United Nations Security Council.

“The missile launches and nuclear tests in the interest of self-defense will become annual,” Ri Tong-il, the North Korean deputy ambassador to the United Nations told the UN Security Council, before his microphone was cut off. His 15 minute speech was suddenly interrupted as the chairman of the body kept reminding the N. Korean representative of a 4 minute time limit for non-permanent members of the UNSC.

In a recently published and lengthy racist screed, North Korea calls President Obama a “clown,” a “dirty fellow” and somebody who “does not even have the basic appearances of a human being.”

Propriety has never been a part of North Korean rhetoric, but rarely has Pyongyang so ferociously — and personally — attacked a U.S. leader, in this case pulling language right out of the American 1850s. The attack seems unabashed, except for one thing: Unlike most articles published by the North’s state-run news agency, this one wasn’t translated into English.